Inbound tourists’ views on safety at the mole enclave in the Northern region of Ghana

Abstract

Ensuring the safety of tourists has become an indispensable element in a destination’s offering in order to ensure the maximum receipt from the tourism industry. This is because safety issues in these times highly influence tourists’ choice of a destination. This thesis assesses inbound tourists’perception of safety at Mole Enclave in the Northern Region of Ghana. The Cultural Theory of Risk was used to analyse the perception of safety of inbound tourist.With the use of accidental sampling method and questionnaires, data was collected from 128 inbound tourists that visited the Mole Enclave. Data was analysed with the use of SPSS version 16. Simple descriptive statistical presentations like frequency table, bar chart and pie charts were used to analyse the data. Chi-Square test was also used to test the significant relationships in the background characteristics and inbound tourists’ pre-trip conception of safety and also overall perception of safety of the destination. Generally, the study found that inbound tourists perceived the Mole Enclave to be safe for tourism activities. However, they had some concerns about the levels of some of the safety attributes especially on health matters as well as security.Based on these findings, it was concluded that among other things, inbound tourists will select the Mole Enclave as a safe destination to visit. It is recommended that stakeholders in the promotion of tourism at the destination put in place additional measures such as streamlining tourism activities at Larabanga, improving quality of food service rendered by local food vendors and improving road network at the enclave to further enhance safety levels.